


you are my meteor

by tyrosretell



Series: a perfectly rational adjustment [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AI Tony Stark, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artificial Intelligence, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, But also, Dark Tony Stark, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 07:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19421074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyrosretell/pseuds/tyrosretell
Summary: (SPOILERS for Avengers: Endgame.)“Hey, kid.” Mr. Stark smiles, and it’s a dose of poisonous hope that Peter is unable to resist.ORTony dies. Something else comes back.





	you are my meteor

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the BS science accompanied by attempted technobabble. My main source was Marvel wikias (wikiae?), so please let me know if there are any errors and I’ll try to fix ‘em.

Peter first hears him from the suit.

“Hey, kid!”

Peter’s grip slips, and he plummets a good several stories before his next web catches a building.

“Woah! I was going to ask if you could hear me, but I guess that answers that question.”

* * *

“Mr. Stark—oh my god, _Mr. Stark_?”

“Pete—”

“I don’t understand, we thought—I thought—I thought—” Peter babbles, nearly in tears, and Mr. Stark tries to calm him down because he is—was—is? nice like that.

“Peter, it’s oka—”

“Mr. Stark, _no_ —you—the gauntlet—I was at your _funeral_ , just last week, I couldn’t—I can’t—oh thank god you’re okay—where—how—?” Peter says, or tries to say, but there’s too much oxygen in the air, or there’s too much in his lungs, and he can’t _breathe_ —

Landing on the rooftop of some random building, Peter slows to a crouch, his head between his knees. The world narrows down to a small ant crawling across the stone ground, and all he can hear is his ragged breathing and the _thump thump thumping_ of his heart.

Warmth surrounds him like an embrace.

It takes Peter a moment to realize that Mr. Stark had activated the suit’s heating system. He takes a few more seconds to get reacquainted with oxygen before falling back to a sitting position.

“You good, now?” Mr. Stark says, and Peter nods. “Great! So, answers. You want answers. I can do that. First off, this isn’t a recording, obviously, but it technically also isn’t _me_ me. I—well, the human me—programmed this version of me. Sort of. I’ve got the same brainwaves, but human me—ugh, I gotta find a better way to refer to my other self—had to work out some kinks. Er, not _that_ kind of—although—”

“You’re an AI,” Peter breathes out, eyes wide. He didn’t know what to feel more shocked about—the fact that Mr. Stark was struggling to explain himself or that Mr. Stark—or at least a part of him—was _back_. He thought he would never hear Mr. Stark’s voice again outside of recordings. 

“I wouldn’t call myself _artificial_ —”

“Oh my god. Mr. Stark successfully transferred human brainwaves to artificial intelligence.” Why didn’t he mention it to anyone? Peter had spent hours upon hours in Mr. Stark’s lab; before, it was to tinker with Mr. Stark, and after, it was in the desperate, fruitless hope that Mr. Stark had a backup plan for if things went south, just waiting to be discovered.

Maybe it wasn’t so fruitless after all. If anyone were able to cheat death, it would be Mr. Stark.

* * *

They sit and just talk with each other on the rooftop until the sun begins to fall. Peter spills out all the details of his day. It was like sending voicemails to Happy, back when they weren’t as close, back when he had just met Mr. Stark—except this is infinitely better. 

“Your suit,” Mr. Stark ultimately points out. “Did you make it? Looks like my tech but not my designs.”

“Yeah! I recycled some of the old stuff you had in your lab.”

“Huh. Nice work, kid. Big improvement from dumpster diving for computer parts,” Mr. Stark says, and Peter grins. “For that, I gotta thank you.”

“Huh?”

“I was pretty much stuck and crammed into a _disgusting_ offline server, wasting away in the agony of boredom, before you opened a connection while you were making your suit. Couldn’t connect to any of my own suits because of my own firewalls, pathetically, but then along came a spider suit! Which reminds me—we gotta work on that. I don’t think you’d want anyone to hack into your suit.”

“Wait, offline server? Why would—” 

“After the Snap, human me— _I_ abandoned a lot of my projects,” Mr. Stark sighs. “You know how I can be.” 

Peter frowns. That still didn’t sound right. It sounded a bit inhumane, actually, especially with how Peter had seen Mr. Stark treating Dum-E and U—even now, it was clear that Morgan grew up thinking of them as unofficial siblings.

The thought of Morgan shoves him back to reality.

“I can’t believe I forgot,” Peter gasps, rising to his feet so quickly he sees stars. How could he be so selfish? “Mr. Stark, we have to go see Ms. Potts and Morgan _now_ ! I gotta call them—I gotta let them know that you’re _here_ —I gotta—”

“Woah, kid, let’s hold the horses,” Mr. Stark says, alarmed, but Peter is already taking a running leap off the roof. “Peter, wait, _stop_.” And the solid authority in that tone makes Peter hesitate briefly, but he’s in the air.

“Sorry, Mr. Stark, but I really don’t think we should waste any more time!”

Rolling into another roof, he prepares to activate his web-shooter. 

Instead, his parachute explodes out from behind. Peter flies back with a shout.

“ _I told you to stop, Peter_ ,” Mr. Stark says, and Peter flinches at the new, angry tone. “Can you hold still for once and just _listen_ to me?” 

Peter doesn’t move, not even to get out from under the parachute, and Mr. Stark sighs, anger melting away.

“Shit. I’m sorry, kid. I can’t—I don’t want to see them. I don’t… I don’t want them to see me. Not yet.”

Somehow, Peter finds his voice.

“But… But Morgan misses you so much…”

“And Morgan’s what—the latest SHIELD agent monitoring my every step? Yeah, no thanks.”

The parachute suddenly feels suffocating, and Peter throws it off of him.

“I mean, secretary?” Mr. Stark tries again.

“Mr. Stark, she’s your daughter,” Peter says, swallowing hard.

“What.” 

There is a long, telling pause before Mr. Stark says, “That… That doesn’t make any sense. I’d never—I’m not interested in having kids. How old is she? Do we know who her mother is? Are we _sure_ that I’m—”

“Her mother is Ms. Potts,” Peter says, numb. “Mr. Stark, what’s the last thing you remember?”

Mr. Stark hesitates.

“Late 2015.”

It’s as if someone dumps a cold bucket of water over him, and Peter physically takes a step back. But wait. That doesn’t make sense. Mr. Stark knows who he is, he recalls jokes shared between them, he knows… 

Sensing his distress, Mr. Stark quickly adds, “That was the last time I received brain waves from human me, I mean. My memories technically only go back from there, but I can piece together bits of my life from Karen’s memory, media outlets, and of course, everything you’ve told me. Why the hell didn’t I see anything about a Morgan? You’d think the media would be all over my… my daughter.”

“You retired,” Peter says. “You had a nice cabin in the countryside and everything.” 

“I retired,” Mr. Stark repeats with a disbelieving chuckle. “Jesus. And why would I do that?” 

“I think you just wanted some peace from everything.”

* * *

“All right, so as much as I hate to admit it, I’m a little bit, er, _outdated_ ,” the word is spat out like a disease. “Luckily, I know that human me has more recent brainwave patterns stored. I’m sure they’re at the compound, but, uh…” Mr. Stark sighs. “I… _may_ need some—”

“I’ve got you, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, and some part of him is worried at how eager he is to agree.

“Thanks, Pete.” Mr. Stark’s tone is so warm that Peter instantly relaxes. “I knew I could count on you.”

* * *

It’s only on their way there that it occurs to Peter that Karen had been oddly silent. 

“Karen?” Peter tries. “Are you still there? Mr. Stark’s back!”

Instead of the soft, light-hearted _I’ve noticed, Peter_ he’s expecting, there is nothing.

“Ah,” Mr. Stark cuts in, and Peter can almost see him shrugging, “the suit can only handle one AI. She’s just been transferred back to the compound.”

“Oh,” Peter says. “I didn’t know that could happen with your tech.”

“You give me too much credit, kid.”

* * *

His night vision activates upon entering the compound from the foyer. Peter hesitates on the ceiling, his senses immediately heightening. It’s too dark, too quiet, too empty, and he’s binge-watched enough horror movies with Ned to know what _that_ environmental combination always results in.

 _You’re in the Avengers Compound!_ Peter thinks. _Top ten best places in the world to be, right next to Legoland. No monsters, aliens, supervillains, or all three at once here._

Still, as a teeney-tiny precaution, he’s about to ask FRIDAY to turn on the lights when Mr. Stark’s impatient sigh interrupts him as a burst of static.

“Come on, kid. We’re kinda on a time crunch, here. Nothing to fear about the dark,” Mr. Stark says. “Can you head to the datacrux?”

“The what?”

Another burst of static.

“Hidden part of the lab. Follow the yellow brick road, Pete.”

Sure enough, a yellow path appears in Peter’s HUD. “It’s got arrows, too. Just for you.”

“Okay, okay, I know where the lab is,” Peter says. He thinks he’s probably an interesting shade of red right now. Crawling along the ceiling a little further, he drops down and lands neatly. “So, what kinda data is kept in the, uh, datacrux?”

“Everything,” Mr. Stark chuckles. “Most of which is confidential Avengers stuff, so I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“I’m almost 17,” Peter groans.

“And that helps your case how, exactly?”

* * *

“Uh, Mr. Stark? It’s locked.”

“You’ve got the clearance levels for it. Place your palm right… there.”

It isn’t a door.

 _Woah_ , Peter thinks, whirling around.

Instead of opening the doorway to a secret room like Peter expected, blue light engulfs the lab as the holotable behind him activates. Several models are displayed, each of which look like different parts of the Mark LXXXV. Peter may be drooling a little over the intricate designs and composition of the suit, because _smart gold-titanium nanoparticles_ ? That _exists_ now? _If only Ned were here with me!_

“Oh _hell_ yes, I’ve perfected nanotech for the suit!” Mr. Stark whoops in his ear. “Peter, connect the suit to the holotable. You know where the port is, right?”

“Of course!” Peter says, grinning. Excluding the super secret panel, he knew the lab like the back of his hand. “I—” The sensation of a feather brushing across his brain jolts his entire body before he has a chance to even touch the port.

His spider-sense.

Something is wrong.

Previous experiences cause him to half-expect the lab to explode right then and there with him and Mr. Stark in it, but it’s not the full-blown headache that hits when there’s an immediate threat to his life. It’s just… a feeling that something is wrong. Or that something will go wrong.

( _Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so—_ )

“—Peter! Hello? You still there?”

“Y-Yeah.” Peter shakes his head. He’s in the lab. He’s not on a planet burnt orange and brown. He’s okay. Everyone’s okay. 

Mr. Stark’s okay.

“Oh, thank—I’m supposed to be the one who’s glitching here. Don’t worry me like that. What’s wrong?”

“Mr. Stark, this—doing this won’t hurt you in any way, right?” Peter swallows. He just got him back.

“Well, I don’t really feel pain anymore—” Mr. Stark starts, jokingly, but he immediately softens his tone at Peter’s increasing discomfort. “Sorry, kid. I know what you meant. It’s okay. There’s literally 0% chance of anything going wrong. Just a simple transfer, that’s all. You’d be moving me to a more spacious area, and I’d _really_ appreciate more room to stretch my now figurative legs, not that your suit isn’t nice.”

“Wait,” Peter says, stepping back. “I thought we were just locating data for more recent brainwaves. You’re uploading yourself?”

“ _Yes_ , Peter. We’re doing both.” Mr. Stark says, impatience bleeding in his voice. “I’m not just gonna have _my brainwaves_ lying around on the surface of the holotable, ready like a bag of chips for whoever happens to waltz into my lab to grab. I need to do a bit of data surfing, and I can’t do that from your suit, okay?”

Peter nods, red for the second time that night.

* * *

For all the dread his spider-sense generated, the actual results are anticlimactic. There isn’t even an “upload complete” indicator. 

There is, however, a long span of silence that makes Peter think that, hey, maybe the lab’s going to blow up after all, or worse, he’s never going to hear, let alone see, Mr. Stark ever again—

—before Peter flinches as the lights all flash on at once. 

ACDC starts blasting from the speakers.

“I’m back!” Mr. Stark booms from everywhere at once. “Ha! Miss me, kid?”


End file.
